Portrait of Count Antonio Porcia and Brugnera

Restoration began in March 2014 and was completed in October of the same year.
The painting can be dated between 1535 and 1540, and is signed in capital Latin characters on the sill on the right: “TITIANVS” (fig. 1). Count Antonio Porcia was a member of an important Friulian lineage.

The canvas, originally placed in the family castle, passed by inheritance first to Carinthia and then to Milan, to be donated to the Pinacoteca di Brera in 1891.

Before being delivered to the Gallery, the work was entrusted to the famous restorer Luigi Cavenaghi. The work had undergone some tampering over time, due to repeated format changes with adaptation of the frame and cornice, which had significantly damaged it around the perimeter (fig. 2). There were also tears in the backing canvas and other damage, to remedy which the painting had been applied to a remodeled canvas and extensively retouched (fig. 3). In addition, a black layer had been spread over the entire background that cut out the figure’s outline, completely covering the landscape, the dark background, and the signature.

In 1891 Cavenaghi’s cleaning of the painting then brought to light some areas in a poor state of preservation, in particular along the right side a wide clear band signaled the now-absence of original color on the white preparation of the canvas. The fingers of the count’s left hand had been completely repainted and then contoured from the black background, removed from which they now remained isolated and incongruous (fig. 4). That is why the nineteenth-century restorer at the end of the restoration decided to cover the clear band, and the posed fingers, with a modification of the fine carved and gilded frame that still contains the work (fig. 5).

The complexity of the intervention was mainly related to the different state of conservation of the various parts of the painting, so it was important to be able to preliminarily distinguish the original parts from the remake parts, especially on the left hand, landscape and face. Numerous diagnostic techniques were therefore employed, including reflectography, infrared false color, ultraviolet fluorescence, radiography, X-fluorescence, colorimetric reflectance spectrometry and some stratigraphic samples. From the intersection of the various results, it was possible to obtain a significant picture of the execution technique and the state of conservation of the work.

After the restoration was completed, the image regained good legibility. The portrait has regained expressive force, the landscape clarity and depth, the dark drapery and background the subtle modulation of tones, and some details such as a minute bucolic scene in the foreground of the landscape, the right hand holding a glove and sword, and the signature itself are now enjoyable. Careful study of the remaking hand, and more generally of the right margin and landscape, has provided clarity by freeing the original parts from later additions as much as possible. Some of Cavenaghi’s retouches near the perimeter were nevertheless left, where it was felt that a removal would not have freed hidden original portions or facilitated the reading of the image.
Finally, the painting was relocated to its 19th-century frame and returned to its place in room XIX of the Pinacoteca di Brera.